OH LA VACHE (HOLY COW)

Yeahh... so, the lights turned out a couple times in this internet cafe and we don't have a ton of time, but I just wanted to let everyone know that all is well! We had a baptism on Saturday (it was epic) and he's getting confirmed next Sunday (he had to go out of town). He wants me to confirm him, which i'm pretty excited about, but also super scared! We also set two baptismal dates for a couple that comes from Cote d'Ivore! They're getting baptized February 1st! I'm just getting to see a ton of miracles and it's super awesome and I wish that I had longer to write, but we have to get out of here pretty soon and start dinner! Other exciting things that happened are I got to sleep in for Christmas and play some sick ping pong, I still think that this French desert called flan feels like sticking a sponge in my mouth, and it's really hard to find people to  teach in France.

My advice this week:

Faith and love, Faith and love. That's how we get stuff done out here. Happy new years everyone, good luck with your wedding Annika!

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

All Is Well but Crazy

The sum total of this week is described very simply as a lot of rejection knocking on doors and talking to people, but a TON of success with all the Ami's (investigators) that we already had!

So this week we started using a method called Christmas contacting, which is essentially just bringing up the concept of Christmas with talking to people on the street and when knocking on doors ask to sing a Christmas song and pray with them. The entire week we got into one house to sing (and me and my companion were so awful she stopped us in the middle and told us that she didn't really have time right then :/).BUT we did see a lot of miracles this week. We haven't been able to teach Ian (our miracle investigator) all the commandments and his baptism is this Saturday. We told him that in order to get them all we would probably have to meet at his house and have a couple  more lessons or postpone the baptism. He got pretty defensive at first, but we just explained how it works and he said he would talk to his wife about it. His wife came to church with his daughter on Sunday and we're visiting him tonight! Teaching him the law of  tithing is going to be scary, but he's so awesome I know that he can handle it! I'll let everyone know how his baptism goes next week! Other than that we have two awesome Amis who live with a family from Africa. They're married and they have two kids and they are just absolutely incredible. The husband accepts everything we teach (which is surprising because he knows a ton about the bible and all these different religions) and they can to the Christmas party we had (which was just a ten minute video and a lot of eating-Typical Frenches) AND they came to church. They're so awesome they invited us over for Christmas (I LOVE THEM A LOT!) We're giving them a baptismal invite this Thursday, so say some prayers for me (I'm extending it and i'm still pretty scared about stuff like that). Anyways, that's really all that happened this week that was exciting, and as my mission progresses I'm starting to realize that it's pretty hard to remember bad times when so many good things happen in life! Have an awesome Christmas everybody and don't forget that the season is about Jesus!

 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good morning (since I'm at least six hours ahead of most of you)!

 

Love,

 

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Crazy Busy

Hey Everybody,

This week was awesome but I don't have a ton of time so I'm going to have to take the lame route and go highlights again.

 

So, this week we had a lesson almost every day. It was awesome because my goal was to teach at least one lesson everyday, so it was cool that I got really close to accomplishing that, but we fell short on saturday. It's awesome though, because we have 5 progressing investigators right now, and we have a ton of people we can teach. As an experienced 6 week old bleu (in France we're bleu and not green) I've come to realize that problems arise in every stage of missionary work. Right now our problem is scheduling conflicts. I'm feel like everyone in the world is just REALLY REALLY busy. It's not anything we can't work around, but it gets pretty challenging sometimes. I have to be honest though, I'm just glad we have people to teach. This week. since my companion left on Monday(too long of a story to explain) and I went into a threesome I had to lead 3 lessons, and for one of those lessons we had planned on giving a baptismal date. I'm happy to report that my first baptismal invite was successful!!!!!! I asked one of the coolest people in the world to be baptized on the 28th of December and he accepted! We've just seen so many miracles here in the now 7 weeks i've been here I just can't believe how awesome the Lord has been to me! I can't lie when i say that giving that invite and having him accept was one of the most amazing experiences of my whole life. Now we just have to get to teaching him (we still have a lot of material to go over). Honestly, I don't have time to talk about all the miracles that we've been blessed with this week, I can just say that we're teaching 3 families, we have tons of investigators who are all super solid, and the work here is moving. I might have believed that missionary work didn't happen in France a couple weeks ago, and when I got here I know that I needed to be humbled just a little bit (Which i was) ;), but now the Lord is moving the work and I get to be part of it. For my spiritual thought this week I just have the very simple fact that MISSIONARY WORK IS FLIPPING AWESOME! Do it, and you'll see. Have an awesome week everybody.

 

Love,

 

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Be Grateful for Whatever You Have

Bonjour tout le monde!

This week was pretty good, I don't have a ton of time since I'm in a threesome right now and we've had to do everything together, so I'll just throw in some of the highlights and hope that you're okay with that!

This week we didn't see a ton of success with old investigators. They're all pretty busy with the holidays coming up and we didn't get a chance to see a lot of them. The ones we did see were for pretty quick visits. Some awesome things that did happen though were that as we were porting a neighborhood a family let us in and we got a return appointment with the tonight! Exciting stuff. So that was our second family and we were pretty excited about it since we didn't know if we were going to find another family (that has been one of our biggest goals since in the mission we have the goal of baptizing a family before Noel!) so, it was pretty sick when we found out we found another family, we then had a rendez-vous with a guy named Patrick in which I feel like we copied the district 2 where they wait a million years before Remigo will finally pray. Patrick prayed and it was amazing. That gave us three new ami's this week, which was more than we had done in the past weeks and it gave us our goal, but the Lord decided to bless us one more time before Elder Hall finished his mission and at 8:00 on Sunday night we went to see a member. It turns out that the members (who are a pretty young couple) lives with the wife of the couples sister and her husband. 5 new investigators in one week. That's almost double the amount of investigators that we've gotten in the last 5 weeks. It was amazing, partially because it's a ton and partially because they're all SOLID investigators. Now I'm with the other Le Havre Elders to finish out the transfer (which is Wednesday) because Elder Hall left early to go on exchanges one last time before he takes the plane home. It was awesome having such an experienced missionary as my first companion and I'm pretty excited to meet my new Comp. 

spiritual Enlightenment!

Before my spiritual thought I think that it's always important to look for the spirit and at least say a quick prayer in your heart to be able to teach accord to that great and powerful presence that can make a person who comes from humble places become wise. I've been listening to a lot of general conference talks in any spare time i can find (which basicaly is only when I eat) and before each talk I hear them talk a little about how they pray the spirit to be with them, to help guide them to help others. I have to say that i'm not the most spiritual of people or the most knowledgeable. In fact, i don't think I'm the most anything of anything, so as I write this I pray INCREDIBLY hard that I might get just a little bit of inspiration! This week I feel like my spiritual enlightenment has to do with gratitude. I feel like a lot of times in life we go by doing pretty well and we just forget to be grateful for everything we have. Throughout a six week period I feel like maybe the reason that I was sent to this windy rainy little town to open a new area is to understand what it was like to have nothing. I feel as though those who have nothing may be the most blessed of all. How much easier is it to be humble and grateful for the things that the Lord see's fit to give us when we start with nothing? For me the answer is A LOT EASIER! over the last six weeks me and Elder Hall worked our butts off to make sure that we were progressing this part of the vineyard, but I think I'll forever be grateful of the time when we had nothing. For anybody I'm writing on a mission (who I know doesn't actually have time to read this), i guess the application of this is to be grateful for whatever you have, wherever you have it, and especially be grateful for the blessing of nothingness. To start out from scratch is the Lords way of telling you that he trusts you! For those of you in the "Real World" I guess the application is a little bit tougher. I guess the way I would think of it is to count your blessings. I feel almost like a hypocrite since I never really did it myself, but all I can really say is that blessings come in all shapes, colors, and sizes and when I look back at everything I'm starting to recognize that I've had a lot more blessings in my life than I would have thought. My advice in the coming week? Count your blessings and say a quick prayer thanking God for each one. And if you're truly grateful for the things that he's given you so far, He might just give you some more :D!

Have an awesome week everybody,

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Too Much of A Good Thing

BONJOUR TOUS LE MONDE! this was a pretty awesome week! I forgot my journal though and so i'm not a hundred percent sure about everything that happened, so I'm going to just have to give you the highlights!

We went to an old fort/botanical garden for P-day and we met this artist who was just drawing a picture of the city! I asked if i could take a picture and lo and behold we're teaching him (Although I'm pretty sure that it's more because Elder Hall has a very strong personality and this guy didn't have a chance of getting away). We've gone back a couple times and we just teach him on a hill overlooking the city. The reason that it's so exciting isn't his willingness to accept our message though, it's simply the fact that he's the first person that i've met here that i just struck up a random conversation and we got talking about the gospel. OPPORTUNITIES ARE EVERYWHERE! Or something along those lines ;)

 

WE HAD THANKSGIVING

AND THEN WE HAD IT AGAIN

and again

and again

 

French people like to eat.... a lot. I'm trying a lot of different things, some of them are thingshad before, some of them are new, and some of them are cheese that has been left out for a month and is no longer a sold material... I cannot lie when I say that escargo is delicious though, you just have to get past the fact that it feels like you've just stuck and enormous booger in your mouth :D

It was awesome though, the members gave us food for one thanksgiving, we had a thanksgiving with half of our zone (the other half lives too far away from us to be able to celebrate with us) we had another one with the members, and then the members decided to fast for the missionaries and then we broke the fast with a huge meal (even though nobody called that thanksgiving, i still count it). Oh yeah, the heavenly material called speculoose that i talked about? I made peanut butter cookies only instead of peanut butter i used speculoose. It was incredible

 

We were busy!

 

It was totally awesome! We literally ran sometimes to get places! we had somewhere to go and somewhere to be and i REALLY feel like my legs are about to fall off right now! Anyways, the last thing i think i wish to talk about is faith!

 

So, what did I learn this week?(I learned that we are spending the last week me and Elder Hall have together entirely in French, so don't tell him i'm writing this in English). But this week what I really learned was that you have to have faith like a monkey. And it sounds a lot like I'm trying to be funny (which is partially true), but it's also pretty serious. We all hold on to things by our fingertips. We don't want to change, we think that there's only one tree in the forest, one solution for every problem, one way to raise your kids, one way to hold a church service, one way to find someone as a missionary. I guess that this week i've seen a lot of people (including myself) holding on to this one branch. When I say have faith like a monkey, i guess what i'm really trying to say is don't be afraid to hold on to another idea. There are always different ways of doing everything and if we don't take a look around, then we might get stuck with a weak branch that eventually just breaks. Have faith like a monkey, trust that when you let go of one branch, there's going to be another one to grab on to! That's my email for this week! Bon chance everybody, do good wherever you are

 

Love,

 

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Testimony Changes Attitudes

WHAZZUP!!! I say only because this week was pretty dang epic! To all my friends in the MTC who I've neglected to put into my emails, i apologize. a quick recap of the last couple weeks goes in the following manner. I received my trainer and learned that we were opening a new area. I then learned that it was my trainer's last transfer and that he had been an epic missionary (former zone leader, former assistant to the president, no big deal). The first couple weeks we got here were pretty rough, nobody wanted to listen to us and all that good stuff. Anyways, he got over it and started having a good time and then this week came around.

Tuesday

We had district meeting and we taught a single lesson. That's what the numbers say, but I feel much more like numbers don't tell the success we're having here. During district meeting we learned a ton, we practice taught a ton and we started coming up with better ways of finding people (because what we're doing now isn't working). I had ratatouille for the first time (it's okay, but not as amazing as the movie makes it out to be). I also ate heaven on a slice of bread. they have a strange peanut buttery like substance here that's called speculoose. It literally is the most delicious thing in the entire world. It's a lot like delta flight cookies in a creamy form. Anyways, our lesson that night was with Ian, our investigator sent from heaven. He basically walked into church and knew that everything was true. we taught with a super helpful member and got through the first half of the plan of salvation. It was a very very good day!

 

Wednesday

Wednesday was a lot of fun, but I cannot for the life of me remember why. A lot of people cancelled on us and it was so cold I thought i was going to die (for anybody that's just gotten added onto the list, I'm in Normandy which is the north western part of France and it rains incredibly cold rain everyday for around 16 hours a day). That was Wednesday though!

 

Thursday

Thursday we finally celebrated Elder Hall's birthday by going to a slightly disgusting Chinese buffet. I really don't like buffets for anyone that doesn't know that already. After that we went on exchanges with the only other companionship in our district. It was pretty fun, I went with Elder Garner and we taught two lessons and contacted some people. The first lesson was pretty much me not understanding anything, but I'll talk about the other lesson a little later. Oh yeah, we got a senior couple too, they're pretty cool. Their name is Piepgrass and they're Cannuks (Canadians) The sister is Belgian, but she's lived in Canada for like 40 years so they're Canadian :)

 

Friday

Friday was a day full of contacting, porting, and getting rejected. Same old same old. After me and Elder Hall got off exchanged though I learned that Ian had told them that he wanted to be baptized (exciting!) But he had to talk to his super Roman catholic wife (Scary!)

 

Saturday

Epic Saturday in which we got our first opportunity to do service, but it ended up taking all day (which was not what we had planned). It was a lot of fun though! We scraped the wallpaper off of a member's kitchen and they were super grateful (I actually think that was why he agreed to come to our lesson with Ian, it was a righteous exchange). Not much other than that though.

 

Sunday!

I don't remember when we taught Fahed, but we taught this Muslim kid who is super cool and open. I'm not sure if he wants to learn the truth or convert us to Islam, but so far he's keeping his commitments and he told us that if he thought our church was true he would join. The members are super awesome to us now, even though we keep trying to set up appointments with them so we can pray with them and then go port in their neighborhood. They're starting to give us the opportunity, we have our first trial run on Tuesday. 

 

ANYWAYS, we didn't get to do a lot of work on Sunday because we had church and two hours of companionship study and all that, so I thought this week was going to end with a pretty lame sauce porting session, but once again the Lord decided to prove me wrong. We found a really awesome lady who we have a return appointment with on Friday. It's funny how you only find people after you're ready to go home, but you decide to try just a couple more doors.

 

SPIRITUAL STUFF!

I'm going to have to say the theme for this week is don't give up! When I went on exchanges with Elder Garner we went to teach a lesson with someone and it turned out that he wasn't home. His wife answered the door and almost sent us on our way before Elder Garner decided not to give up. He taught he the restoration and then the lady started talking and saying how she didn't think our church was any different than any other. I bore my testimony. It's funny because I only had a small understanding of what she was saying, up until this point I hadn't said anything in 30 minutes, and it seemed like the lady just wasn't interested. At this point in my life I can honestly say that there is nothing I have in this world that is more important or powerful than my testimony. This woman changed her attitude completely, Elder Garner succeeded in getting her to a family home evening and I think she's coming to church next week. It just showed me that perseverance is amazing and that this gospel touches peoples hearts. I didn't bear my testimony with perfect French and it was pretty simple, but I know that by small and simple things great things can come to pass. regardless of who you are or what challenges you're having right now, Don't give up. Sometimes overall goals aren't achieved by perseverance and we fail, sometimes we feel that despite our perseverance nothing will change. I don't think it matters, and I know that sometimes we don't change the world or even another person, but I know that trying over and over and over (and over) again without giving up changes us, it makes us better and that is what life is all about.

 

Have an awesome week everybody, if you made it this far into my rambling letter thanks! Remember not to give up!

 

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Hard Work in La Harve

MMMkay!

Tuesday

Tuesday was actually a lot of fun, we had district meeting and the AP's were there. I really love the AP's and it was a lot of fun meeting everyone in our zone. It kind of felt like a day off too, which was fun except for the fact that I don't think I understand anything that they taught (French is killing me!). I'll get it though, I at least can answer people when they ask me questions now!

Wednesday

Wednesday started out pretty bad, it rained all day (and then it rained all day the next day, and the next, all the way until Sunday where we had a nice day, but we were inside for most of it). All that happened was that we got rejected pretty badly. After a little while I just stopped talking and I let my companion do the talking. He stopped in the Gare for a couple minutes, turned to me and asked me what he could do because something was obviously wrong. I just talked about how it was kind of tough. It makes it harder because my companion had a trainer who told him exactly what to do and he hated it. He promised himself that he wouldn't ever be like his trainer, so now he just kind of leaves it up to the people he trains to figure it out. I don't know if you've ever been in the situation where you just had to figure it out, but trust me when I say it's really scary. I just told him that I'm a little new here and I'll try my best if he gives me a little guidance now and then. From this point on we started doing A LOT better. Since we decided we were going to talk to everyone we saw, we walk down the street side by side and whichever side a person is walking down determines which person gets to talk to them. It makes it a lot easier than trying to decide who contacts who, but it's kind of scary because it turns the 1/10 people that I used to contact to 1/2. It's fun though and on Tuesday we met two or three people. We accomplished the great feat of getting two phone numbers! It was awesome.

Thursday

THURSDAY WE TAUGHT 3 LESSONS! They were the first three lessons of my entire mission and I don't remember much of them other than the people didn't seem to be very interested after we taught them with the exception of a teenage Muslim boy (we didn't know he was Muslim when we contacted him otherwise we wouldn't have been allowed to contact him) who agreed to read the Book of Mormon and keep meeting with us if we would read parts of the Qumran he printed out in English. It was interesting to say the least and pretty confusing, but we figure if he's going to keep his part we need to keep ours as well.

Friday/Saturday

Not going to lie when I say that Friday and Saturday just seemed like a blur of people being kind of rude and saying no, it was a lot more fun to go out contacting though and despite getting rejected a hundred million times, and a lot of tombe-vous, it actually seems like we set up a solid week next week. We got our first referral from the office and we're going to see her tomorrow and there's a couple people who responded to us when we called REALLY OLD investigators (I'm talking like 5 or 6 years old). I'm pretty excited about next week though! We have interviews with President, Exchanges with zone leaders, and a very busy week ahead of us!

Sunday

Even Sunday was a lot better, I tried to be more friendly to the members and we asked a couple if we could visit them this week. A random guy showed up to church and we fixed a rendezvous on Wednesday. It was crazy because he just showed up and before he left he told us how much sense we made as a church. Oh yeah, me and Elder Hall taught the lesson too this week for investigators class(Gospel principles is what we call it back home i think) and we rocked it! An old lady invited us over to eat on Saturday too, so I'm pretty excited.

OTHER STUFF!!

So, what do I want to talk about this week? I guess just talking it out. This week whenever I got frustrated or upset about something I would just let people know. I know a lot of times people can get annoyed of you complaining or think that you're sharing too much information, but I think that's worth getting whatever beef you have off your chest. Letting something fester just leaves feelings of resentment and anger and if you don't talk to people about the problems you have with them with the willingness to compromise on those issues, you're going to blow up eventually. I feel stressed out all the time here and it's cold and wet and nobody will talk to us, but this week has been a thousand times better just because I've spoken my mind. So, my message for this week is don't bury your problems, just fix them. I know it's not easy, but it's better to pay the price to fix things when they break then it is to try to go through life broken.

HAVE AN AWESOME WEEK EVERYBODY, help out your missionaries (Trust me when I say that they need it)

Love, 

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

First Week in France

Tuesday

So, tuesday started out pretty crazy. We basically were on the plane until 9 am. The plane ride was rough though, we went through a lot of turbulence and I really thought I was going to throw up everywhere. there was a really awesome spanish lady who sat next to me though and she tried to help me out as much as she could. By the end of the flight I had her and her long time boyfriend talking about what they believed in. First Book of Mormon handed out in France. We met President Poznaski and his wife and all the AP's who are pretty awesome, Other than that we just kind of looked around with really big eyes

Wendsday

Wendsday was awesome! it started out really awesome where we got up (we were sleeping at a hotel) and ate a pretty awesome breakfast (the food here is much different than the MTC). Me and Elder Oviatt talked to a guy from Congo on the Metro with the presidents daughter (I joked that she was a member present) and we gave him a book of mormon. Second Book of Mormon handed out in France. We had an interview with president Poznaski and then we had a slide show interview that showed who are trainers were and where we were going. Right now I'm in Le Harve (which means the Harbor in French) and it's in Normandy and i'm being trained by someone on his second to last transfer (which means I'm going to kill him). It's kind of a weird story. Elder Hall has basically done it all. He was DL, ZL, and AP and then he started training someone. The weird thing is that you usually train someone for two transfers. After Elder Halls first transfer with this super buff, 24 year old Hawian world champion swimmer he got switched. He's training me in something even more difficult than a whitewash. We're Opening. That means that we literally have nothing to work on. We're coming into Le Harve to help another companionship, but we essentially are starting completely from scratch. Anyways, after a very long train ride in which I slept most of the time and at the end we talked to a guy that apparently gotten into doing LSD (Which was one of the strangest conversations I've ever had in my life) we arrived in the very hostile city of Le Harve

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

I'm going to be honest when I say that these three days are just a blur. I have to say that I don't think I understand anything that people are saying. All I understand is that they don't seem very interested. So far we've had one lesson taught after which a man said he wasn't interested, five tombé-vous (which we call a rendez-vous that fell through) and I don't even know how many people who are just not very interested. Before I left the MTC they said not to worry, French people aren't as mean as everyone says they are. Don't believe people when they say that!!!! French people can be pretty mean. Anyways, thursday friday and saturday are just a blur of cold, windy, rainy (did I mention that that's basically all the weather in Normandy ever is). And getting really good at saying Merci, Au revoir

Sunday

Sunday was a lot better, we went to church and even though I didn't understand anything that people were saying, they were all really nice. We still didn't have any success trying to contact people, but a lot of people talked to us and we got some rendez-vous set up for later this week, so fingers crossed.

Other stuff!

I have to say, despite being rejected a hundred thousand times, I don't feel too discouraged. There were times this week when I just felt like crying because it was so bad, but I'm starting to feel better about it. There's someone out there who's waiting for us and we're going to find them, We're working hard and doing what we're supposed to and I know that the Lord is out there preparing people for us. This week I think Elder Hall reported the worst numbers he's had his entire mission. I don't know if it's because of me or not, but we almost got a 0 for every category you report for and he said he had never gotten 0 for everything. The lesson we taught was nice and we're doing okay contacting, but I know I can do better. In my interview with President Poznaski he asked "are you a bold missionary?". I said Yes! I'm not a liar and I know I can be bolder and be better in this next week, so boldness! I guess my message for this week is be bold. There's no reason to be scared in life, we just need to bold in everything we do. Be bold, regardless of how you feel or what's wrong, Be Bold!

Au Revoir!

P.S.

I ate a kebab today and it was delicious

Arrival in Paris

To the Family of Elder Bruno 

Sister Poznanski and I were delighted to welcome your son , Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno , into the France Paris Mission on 29 Oct 2013. He and his MTC companions were enthusiastic and all arrived in good health.  He spent his first day eating some good food, visiting with me, contacting non-members in the heart of Paris, and sharing testimonies.  We enjoyed his spirit.

The next morning, after a mission orientation, Elder Bruno left for his first assignment to work in the Le Harve 2 Area with Elder Hall, who will be his trainer.  Their apartment address is:

[Data Unavailable] 

Any packages or letters you would like to send will reach your missionary at this address.

We feel very privileged to work with your him.  We also realize the responsibility we share with you to help him continue to grow spiritually as he faithfully performs his duties.  May the Lord inspire us all to sustain him in this challenging and exciting assignment.  We hope you will join Sister Poznanski and me in praying each day for your son , his companion, investigators, and all of us serving in the France Paris Mission.

A positive, supportive letter from home every week does wonders to sustain a missionary’s morale.  Proverbs 25:25 states:  As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. If you have any questions, or if we can assist you in any way, please contact us at our office (001-331-3480-0483) or home (001-331-3976-8402).

Sincerely,

Franck Poznanski

President, France Paris Mission

Dear Families of our Missionaries,

I am pleased to be able to send you this little E-mail to announce to you the creation of the Facebook of the Paris France Mission.

We hope to be able to place photos of the events that take place here in the mission every 15 days so that we might share with you the Spirit that animates our mission.  Your comments our welcome, but we hope you understand we will not be able to respond to each one individually because of time.

We are very grateful for the support that you give through your prayers and the E-mails for your children. It is very precious.

Some amazing things are happening in this mission thanks to the faith, the perseverance and the desire of our missionaries to better fulfill the reason why they are here on mission. They are continually putting amazing efforts into raising the bar and to see the fruits of their labors.

We are very grateful for these chosen youth who have been place in our care and we assure you that we are doing all that we can to make sure they are taken care of. We love and care for them dearly.

We invite you to join our group, so that you might be able to participate in the great moments unfolding in each photo. Here is the name : “France Paris Mission Poznanski”

Sincerely,

Sister Poznanski

Till We Meet Again

Sorry everybody, this week is going to be a short email! I leave for the airport in about two hours and so I just thought I send everybody just an itty bitty email for this week. When you spend every waking hour with five other Elders and two Sisters you start developing really strong bonds of friendship. Today Elder Pedersen, Elder Ghirelli, and Sœur Grünke left. I woke up early to say goodbye to the Elders. Before Elder Ghirelli left I gave him a hug and I told him, "even if we don't see each other again, we're always going to remember you. The Lord needs you now, Do work". It's strange to think that there are people that you can come so close to in your life, who you feel like have helped you so much and been such an impact, and then you never see them again. We talk about visiting each other, but it's unlikely that we ever will. We say goodbye, we serve our two years, and then we go back to our respective countries. And yet, I don't think I'll ever forget those three people. We talk about the missionary purpose of bringing others closer to Christ and we always think in the term of investigators. Last night at the departure devotional they asked a couple converts to stand and shout out their missionaries. I thought a lot about how each person was brought to Christ from these two people. I love these three missionaries from the bottom of my heart and through the progress that they've helped me with towards coming closer to Christ I know that Elder Roberto Ghirelli, Elder Mark Pedersen, and Sœur Vanessa Grünke will always be part of a very exclusive group of missionaries in my heart. They will always be my missionaries (However cheesy that may sound ). Have a great week everybody, treasure the time you have with others because it goes fast!

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Week 5 of the MTC! The week of plodding onwards

Bonjour ma famille et mes amies,

Have you ever gotten into a time when you're just tired? kind of tired of going to school or work or whatever else and you just want to take a day off? That's what my email is about! well, a little bit since it really wasn't that bad, I just needed an awesome title for my email! Anyways, Here's how my week went

Tuesday

Tuesday will also include my Monday experience with a substitute teacher we had named sœur Boswell. She was possibly one of the coolest people i've ever met in my entire life. She talked about the Holy Ghost's role in conversion and she was just so loud and outgoing it was amazing. Everyone in class fell in love with her in two seconds and her out there attitude (that I think she picked up from the Tahitian mission she served) made her one of the friendliess people i've ever met in my entire life. I feel like if i could get to know people as fast as she does and if people liked me that much after two hours, I'd be an incredibly successful missionary. At the end of class she paired us up into groups and had us pretend to be an investigator. I pretended to be Jeremiah Bohon (I have absolutely no idea if anybody knows who that is, but I love that kid). I got paired up with Sœur Grunke. She was an investigator that was atheist, she grew up with her and she was one of her best friends. I'll explain the rest of the situation in my spiritual section! Tuesday was good as well. Elder Rodriguez (a hilarious Elder who doesn't speak a lot of English, but who has a spicy Spanish attitude) was sick and he didn't get to go to the devotional or do anything all day. The zone felt a little lonlier without him there. We started playing four square in Gym almost every day and it's A LOT of fun. Other than that there was the devotional, which will be in my spiritual section, and an incident with Halloween decorations. We put up Halloween decorations in our classroom on sunday and on Tuesday the French coordinator talked to us telling us that it wasn't appropriate for missionaries. I was a little sad at first, but I totally understood and so we took all the decorations down.

Wednesday

Wendsday was a pretty good day right up until the end. Elder Baldwin's girlfriends brother came by the class, but we weren't there so he came back later in the week to talk to him (and the funniest thing happened, but that's for later). I lost my green magnet, so I picked a new one up from the front desk, and we taught Sœur Pace and Sœur Judas. I did amazing with the lesson for Marion (sœur Judas), but my lesson with Ester was not good at all. I felt like I should have been better since I had learned how to relate better to investigators, but it seems like I just have to try harder with roleplaying! We taught Frére Mayne in English, which made it a lot easier, but I really have a hard time with teaching :/ At the end of the day the new Elder and Sisters that came into our zone had orientation. We went over to their class and showed them around, but it turned out that one of them was sick and so she went to the clinic. When we got back to the residence we found out that she had gone to the ER and so as zone leaders we had to go to the front desk and call President Merrill. It was pretty scary and when we got back to the dorms Elder Baldwin wanted to have a zone prayer and that's why I had a bad night. Zone prayers aren't allowed, President Merrill specifically told me and Elder Baldwin that they weren't, but I don't think Elder Baldwin remembered. I had to tell him that we couldn't do it since they were against the rules. I went to the rooms he had already told and told them to pray as a district and not as a zone. Then I met Elder Baldwin in the our room. We fought about it for a little while and I simply said No. Elder Jansen and Elder Pederson knew the new sister from before the MTC because they're all scananavian and so they were a little upset about it too. I knew it was against the rules, but it was just hard for me to do because I hate telling people they can't do something, especially when it's something that seems like a good thing. It was just a prayer that they wanted to have and I had to put my foot down and say no. I know I've written a lot about it and that it seems like such a simple and small thing to get upset about and nobody but me really feels this strongly about it, but it was a really hard thing for me to do. I just felt bad for Elder Pederson and Elder Jansen that they couldn't pray for one of their really good friends from back home with the entire zone and I felt bad about having to belittle Elder Baldwin or make him feel bad. I always felt like I was the leadership type in high school since I ran for all these different offices and a lot of people liked me, but something as simple as saying no to a zone prayer really made me think that maybe I'm not cut out for leadership... It's not a big deal, it's just that I'm starting to think that being likable and being a leader are two really different things and as hard as I try, I don't know if I'll ever be the latter.

Thursday

And the plodding begins. We had TRC, which was exciting, we taught really well, but other than that nothing happened all day. It was so slow of a day I thought I was going to die. Other than TRC the only thing that happened was that I found out that i gained 17 pounds so far. That's right, 17. We decided that we would wake up early the next morning and go running. We did get our travel plans, which was incredibly exciting, but it just made me think that we have to go a whole other week before we're out of here.

Friday

Soooo, the internationals went to Salt Lake and had a lot of fun and we had another day of monotony. We didn't go running because Elder Baldwin hit his foot against a chair getting up, so we decided we would wait until Monday. We taught a lot of lessons and even though I feel like we're doing better, we're just not getting to the level I wanted to be at when I left the MTC. It's kind of discouraging. The days melt together and it just feels like I've been here forever, but I'm trying to stay strong and not die! I started feeling a little sad that soon me and Elder Baldwin won't be companions anymore since he's awesome. The guy literally wakes up every day exactly on time, he remembers everything, and everything I'm awful at he's amazing at. Like I said though, One more week feels short when I think about it as my whole mission, but if I think about it like the days i've been having it feels like forever and a day. Funny Story, Elder Baldwins girfriends brother teaches at the MTC so he dropped by and talked to Elder Baldwin out in the hall. When Sœur Judas saw him she hid behind the door. After he left she told us that they had gone on a blind date and he had been awful during it. A few weeks after their date she saw him holding hands with one of the Sisters that she had served with in her mission. It's crazy how different people know each other here! Small world I guess

Saturday

And more monotony. The MTC is almost the same thing every day but sunday, for 5 weeks (the last week is a little bit different). Essentially I've done this same thing for 30 something days. It gets a little bit monotonious. I love it here and I try to learn as much as I can, but sometimes I just have to keep plodding :). The only thing that happened different on saturday was that we did service (which was vaccuming) and we worked out in the morning. I'm essentially on a diet now because I don't want to be a whale, but other than an unusal amount of lettuce and a little extra excersize, same old thing.

Sunday

SUNDAYS ARE ALWAYS AMAAZING! This can count as part of my spiritual stuff, becuase it's SUNDAY! We had sacrament meeting on baptism and I thought all day, how does this apply to me at all? but eventually I really thought of the sacrament and the covenants that we make with the Lord and realized that even having been baptized for as long as I have, baptism is a covenant that I promised the Lord to do something, and as imperfect of a person as I am, I always try to keep my promises. Our District wore different color ties to form a rainbow, we learned that sometimes even if we're right it's better to take the high road to help out our companion, and that really applies to everyone. Whenever something bad happens to me I'm starting to try to take the high road now. We do a lot of pranks to each other just because we love having fun and laughing, but I've realized that when something goes wrong, we need to forgive others. In TRC we taught forgiveness and so i've been making it a personal goal to try to try to forgive others rather than seeking for revenge. Revenge leads to unkind feelings and so i'm trying to let everything go. Sunday night I was kind of feeling like i needed to work a little bit so I brought my bible with me to the devotional so I could memorize a scripture. I started to memorize Isiah 1:18 and then the speaker talked. And of course he talked about repentance and enduring to the end. It never ceases to amaze me that every time I think of a new goal there happens to be a sign in my life that says GOOD Idea! The speaker talked about working and being here was the right thing, but the talk really made me think about the bad things I've done in my life. I've had questions of whether this was the right place for me or not and I've prayed a lot about it and every time i've recieved the answer that I am where I'm supposed to be. Despite these answers though, I still have had doubts in myself. Last night I stopped doubting. This is where I am supposed to be, the Lord has forgiven me of my sins just as he can forgive others of theirs and just as we must forgive others when they commit sins against us. After the devotional we watched a video by Elder Bednar titled "becoming a missionary". It's an amazing video, but the biggest thing that I took out of it was that every mission is good for a missionary, but not every missionary is good for a mission. I do not want to be someone who doubts their ability to the point where they are no longer good for their mission, I do not want to be a person who doubts their ability at all. I am a missionary and my work is his work. I do not doubt the Lord and therefore I cannot doubt myself 

Spiritual STUFF!

So, with Sœur Grunke I learned that to teach in a roleplaying situation, don't think about how you would think about that person is, think about them like the person who actually taught them was. It's a little hard to explain, but essentially all the investigators we teach are real people that our teachers all taught on their missions. When I taught Sœur Grunke and I realized what this friend meant to her I tried to teach her like Sœur Grunke would want her friend taught. Everybody that is imaginary is loved by the person we're actually teaching and I realized that in order to be a teacher I need to love them as well. It's a tough principle to master, but I know that these people are important and so I'm trying as hard as I can!

The next spiritual experience I had was the Tuesday Night devotional. We sang Praise to The Man and had Dallin H. Oaks speak. I loved singing praise to the man, it made me really empathize with the prophet Joseph Smith and realize how amazing of a person her was. Unfortunately I didn't feel incredible when I heard Elder Oaks talk. It really worried me that I had heard an apostle of God speak and his message didn't penetrate me to the core. It was at this moment that I realized that I'm not going to have a spiritual experience that brings me to tears every time I teach an investigator or I hear someone talk. I feel like I'm so constantly filled with the spirit that sometimes it's hard to realize that he's always there. Just like the law of opposites, because I feel him so often it's hard to know of a time that I didn't feel the spirit. Learning and plodding onwards are sometimes all we can do and it was this experience that helped me through this week. Sometimes we just have to buckle down and work even though it feels like we're just plodding. Races are finished one step at a time and we can't expect every day to be the most amazing one we've ever had. Keeping a good attitude and hoping for the best, that's how you get through long hard treks. For everyone back home, Try hard, work hard, and anytime you feel like taking a day off because you don't feel motivated enough to do it remember that there's no such thing as a day off for a missionary and every member is a missionary :)!

Sorry about the long letter, Our laundry took a little bit longer than normal and so I just kept going! I report to the travel office at 11:30 on Monday the 28th so I'll probably have enough time to read your emails if you send them and if you're going to send letters make sure to send them to my Paris Address.

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

A Week of Weakness

Bonjour ma famille et mes amis

All is good in the hood. This week has been a little tougher than the last couple, but that's alright. Not every day of life is our best. My week went as follows

Tuesday

Tuesday was alright, the West Indies district left and they all signed my journals. The zone leaders handed down the zone leader ties, one to the tall zone leader and one to the short zone leader. It has like 30 names on it, so it's pretty sweet. We also received the robe of righteousness, which is basically just a bed sheet. They were really awesome and I'm definitely missing them, but it was time for them to get out and go preach in their very sweaty corner of the vineyard. We had a devotional by Elder Matsen (a retired 70), but I sadly didn't pay a ton of attention to it.

Wednesday

Wednesday was possibly the worst day I've had so far. It started out early and I just felt so tired and miserable I thought i was going to die. I tried to keep a good attitude and stay awake, but I just kept dozing off in class. I really want to kick the bad habit of complaining all the time, but Wednesday I definitely failed at that. To top it off I just felt really sick (the sickness of which a lingering runny nose and nasty cough is still persisting). I didn't really get too much out of our first classroom instruction, but the second one we learned about gospel principles. I love gospel principles, but I just couldn't concentrate. Before the class started a teacher named sœur Pace came in and told me I was going to teach an "investigator" named Ester (which really just meant we were going to role play). We had a substitute named frére Myers for that class and sœur pace came in to help us before we went "tracting" (which was basically just knocking on a door and trying to get frére Myers to let us in). I was talking to my companion and we disagreed about the baptismal invitation. Sœur Pace came over and told me I was wrong and I just felt so upset. We went tracting and I didn't do amazing, we used the baptismal invitation and it went over fine, but I just felt a little upset. Before I went to bed I wrote in my journal "I guess I'm going to have a long prayer tonight. I guess I just need to work a little bit harder and maybe it'll go better" and trust me when I say that it was a very LONG prayer.

Thursday

Thursday I had my lesson with Ester, and it went AMAZING! I understood everything she said and at the end I gave her the baptismal invitation. She said no because she was already baptized. I was pretty confused about it, but I asked her to go to church on Sunday (It's funny because we have to ask them after Sunday if they went to church) and I asked if we could meet again. We scheduled for Saturday. As soon as I walked out of that class I learned how to teach. It was the first time aside from French lessons that I really felt like I learned how to preach the gospel.  I found out that to explain to someone that had already been baptized you should teach the restoration. Everything just seemed to click into place. We also had TRC which I also did amazing! It really was a day of confidence boosting and I just felt really happy.

Friday

Friday was pretty routine, We worked on keeping lessons simple, which actually really helped me. The weird thing about Friday was that I actually started paying attention to how to teach. Before I would kind of zone out and mostly concentrate on learning French, but I'm starting to realize that I NEED to learn how to teach! Other than that though, it was a blah day.

Saturday

Saturday we did service and i had to clean bathrooms. Don't get me wrong, I've cleaned plenty of bathrooms and I was happy I got to move around and work rather than sitting in a classroom (farmwork messes up your brain I guess), but I really hate bathrooms. I just had to focus on doing work for the lord rather than cleaning nasty bathrooms. I taught Ester on the restoration, and it was amazing. Up until this point I had felt so discouraged about learning French. It's been pretty tough for me especially since everyone else in the intermediate class is so good at it. I really saw how much hard work pays off in this lesson though. Ester understood most of what I said and afterwards sœur pace complimented me on how well I taught (which is saying something because sœur Pace is kind of mean). It's weird, I'm really starting to like sœur Pace because of how rapidly my teaching is improving when just three days before I really did not like the lady at all. I have another lesson today so let's see how it goes!

Sunday

Sunday was another day of parting. The Montreal missionaries left for their mission and the only person that had ties to South Carolina went too. It was just some kid who had gone to the college of Charleston for a year named Elder Flitton. I don't know why, but I just felt like he was one of my last ties home. I'm not homesick or anything, but it's just a little bit sad when Elders part ways on a mission. Elder Fierro, and Elder Bybee were awesome too and it just feels kind of strange to know that some of these people you became best friends with in 3 weeks you might never see again. Other than that my obedience paid off. The whole day I had just been talking about pie. It's crazy how you can miss something soooo simple, but I just talked about pie all day. Finally, at the end of the day, I planned hard for my lesson today and when I walked out of the classroom to go to the residence at 9:30, The lord poured down blessings in the form of delicious apple pie. Sœur Dick (the old sister training leader who was leaving tomorrow) had been sent pie for her last day in the MTC. HAHAH, as childish and as silly as it sounds, I don't think I've ever had a spiritual experience where the Lord testified to me so clearly that I was doing the right thing. It really made me love being here. We had a devotional by the MTC administrative director that was really awesome and afterwards we watched "only a stone cutter" and in those short fifteen minutes I realized what my spiritual stuff for this week was going to be.

SPIRITUAL STUFF!

So, what did I think of my whole 24 hours of trials? Now that I think back I think how silly I was to get so upset about such simple things, but yesterday I also wrote this. My whole life I've been cruising on good luck, and natural intelligence. I do better spontaneously than a lot of people do by planning and working hard. I've always thought, play to your strengths and you'll do fine. It's funny, because when brother Miner (the second councilor in my bishopric) asked me what my favorite scripture so he could put it on my plaque was I did what I do best. I didn't answer him until the last minute. Finally he found me in the church hallway the Sunday before I left and asked again. All I could think was that I had been flipping through Ether with the missionaries a couple days ago when I had driven them to a lesson. I flipped through a couple pages in Ether and found a scripture. Like I said before, I play to my strengths because that's what I'm good at, that how I've done things my whole life. I gave brother Miner a scripture that I literally had never read in my entire life. Ether 12:27. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness that they may be humble: and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." I learned this week that missionary work cannot and will not ever be what we want it to be. Missionary work is not spontaneous or impulsive, Missionary work is careful planning, missionary work is prayer and faithful study, missionary work is everything I've been weak at my entire life. And yet I am a missionary. I will change, I will work, and I will make what was once weak strong. Have a great week everybody

With Love from your missionary,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Week Three of the MTC! Relying on the lord

This week was pretty good! before I start my letter I'll tell everyone the big news, last Sunday I got appointed Zone Leader (Kind of). The old zone leaders left yesterday, but our branch president wasn't able to come to the MTC during general conference so he told us we would start being zone leaders one saturday since he couldn't be there and we had to check out the old zone leaders district. It was pretty scary and I was terrified at first, but it actually isn't super difficult. I've been Zone leader of Branch 46 for four days, but it feels almost the same as being District leader, just calm down, help everyone as much as you can, try to resolve conflicts as fast as you can, and make sure you know everyone. My favorite part of General Conference (Other than Elder Ballard talk about my dad's mission!) was the quote from Abraham Lincoln. In order to win a man to your cause, you must first make him think you are a sincere friend. I guess leading people isn't always about being someone's friend, but if you know them as a friend it makes it so much easier to help them solve their problems.

Anyways, just like last P-day I'll start with the big plates

Tuesday

So, everything started slowing down. This is the first day i really felt in the groove, which might have been bad because felt a little like I was taking it easy. David Baxton of the 70 spoke at the devotional, but i'll talk more about that later.We played basketball for gym which was a lot of fun and I got a letter from Travis (which was superrr exciting). I wore a crazy tie and everybody loved it, but while i was singing in the choir the camera focused on me for what seemed like 100 years. Everybody made fun of me, and I was a little bit embarrassed, but I can't say that i hated the attention. I really love the choir director. We sang come follow me more about that later though!

Wednesday

Nothing really crazy happened  sadly. I fell asleep in class and i felt super bad about it. I realized that my French is improving though so that's good! We had a mock lesson with our teacher pretending to be an investigator and i felt okay about it, but not as great as I would have liked. I did realize that I need to start losing myself in the work more though!

Thursday

Thursday was amazing, We had TRC which is basically talking to real members and teaching them a lesson in French. The first person we taught (his name was Michael strangely enough) i didn't really understand. He had gone on his mission to Toulouse, but other than that Elder Baldwin did most of the talking (he's pretty good at french). The second lesson we had though was with a lady named sister Woods. She had served a spanish speaking mission, but the MTC didn't need any Spanish volunteers. She wanted to volunteer so badly that she taught herself French. She was amazing and her French wasn't that much better than me and Elder Balwin's (we all spoke like small children), but i felt the spirit really strongly and so I LOVED it! we also shot each other with hornets, which are basically folded up paper shot with rubber bands. It was a lot of fun, but Im pretty sure i have several welts. It reminds me that as much as the spirit oozes out of every corner of the MTC, we're still 18 year old boys who just need to have fun every now and then. We keep each in check though, so there's fun, but we also keep each other in check.

Friday

Friday was also amazing. The first part of the day was a blur, but at the end we did mock street contacting. For one of the scenarios I got to choose what kind of investigators i wanted to be. I chose to be a Frenchman with a girlfriend and a baby. It was really funny, but it was also a little bit sad. After I pretended the teacher told us that we would actually meet a lot of people that had children with girlfriend. It was kind of a sobering moment. It was also sad because we combined with the West-Indies District who were also the zone leaders. I knew it was probably the last time I would really get to talk to them since they would be busy packing up before they left on Monday. It was an awesome day, but it also made me realize that France is going to be full of people who need the gospel, but have a lot of problems and that many of the people I know here in the MTC who are amazing I might never get to see again.

Saturday and Sunday

General Conference all day, it was spiritual, inspired, and amazing, but i don't have time to talk about it all. If you didn't watch it, watch it. It was one of the best ones ever! At the end on Sunday we had a devotional by VOCAL POINT! They were amazing and I'm sure everyone already knows who they are (BYU's amazing singing group). And that about wraps it up

SPIRITUAL STUFF!

Alrighty, spiritually this week was pretty fulfilling, but i don't think anyone could be in the MTC and not think so.

1- Elder Baxters talk on the Godhead was amazing and it actually really cleared up a lot of questions i had. I know that in Europe it will be a tough topic to talk about and so I'm really glad to get as much information on it as possible.

2- Choir. We sang Come Follow Me. I LOVE THE CHOIR DIRECTOR! he's amazing. He always puts a spiritual message to every song we sing and for this one he talked about missionaries singing this song. As much as it sounds like Christ is the narrator, he's not. The song is about missionaries bringing others unto Christ and it is absolutely 100% sweetness to hear about missionary's when you're a full time missionary. I wish i could share the choir directors message as well as he told me, but all i can say is that i know that Christ calls missionaries to bring others to him.

3- Being a leader means relying on the Lord. As difficult as i thought it would be, the lord makes it easy. I kept hearing during conference to cast your burdens on the lord because his burden is easy and his yolk is light. It really is true. regardless of what we do or how hard it is, we can accomplish anything through the lord. I thought that waking up earlier for Sunday meetings or being in charge of a lot of people would be a trial, but really it's been a blessing and I know that through the lord I can only grow stronger and help more people. Missionaries always come home better people than they left, but I'm starting to realize that it's because they don't seek to change themselves, or at least if they do seek to change themselves then it's only so that they can help others. Maybe that's the secret to life, just try to help others and maybe by doing that we help ourselves. Love you guys, keep writing because I've never thought a small piece of paper or a tiny email with two sentences could ever make me so happy.

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

Nothing can come together until everything has fallen apart.

Oh Yeah! The reason that i wrote the title is that this week it seemed like everything broke. My Belt snapped in half, a seam came out of my pants, one of my shoes seam came out and all that stuff. It only seemed to happen when i was discouraged though, Haha, so I better stop being discouraged and get back to work! Everything broke this week, but it all seemed to come together.

Bonjour ma famille et mes amies!

This week I've heard a lot about writing home spiritual experiences, but if i just wrote home spiritual experiences you'd miss a lot of what's happening. That's why I'm going to write a big plates history account and an itty bitty plates account of the spiritual stuff that's happened this week! For those that don't know what I'm talking about, it's the whole big plates of the book of mormon being the history and the little plates being the spiritual portion.

BIG and possibly hilarious plates

Alright, so since P-day is monday i'll start with Tuesday

Tuesday

Alright, this is possibly the best day of my entire mission. Tuesday we started out normal with class and all that good stuff, and then we had a medical meeting so that we could get into Belgium. Funny thing is, Belgium makes you take a parasite test to get into the country and a blood test for diseases. First we went to the nurses office and got our blood taken (I even have some pictures!). Then, we had to poop in a cup. That's right, I had to poop in a cup. As much as i think poop is one of the most hilarious things in the world, this was an incredibly traumatic experience made even worse by the fact that while i was doing it my shorts fell in the toilet. we were about to exercise, so luckily I had spandex on i could run back into the room in, but it was still pretty embarrassing. It was possibly the worst and best thing i've ever had to do in my whole life. I also got tricked into calling myself ugly in Danish (The black guy in our district, Elder Pederson, got me to say it to another Elder from Denmark). We had a devotional from Don R. Clarke and i got to sing in the choir, but more of that in my spiritual portion. We also found out the Elder Ghirelli (the brazillian elder who's super quiet) swooped in and stole a girl that had been engaged before he left on his mission. They broke up before he left, but she still writes him every week. It's funny because you'd never expect something like that from a guy as shy and quiet as he is! Unfortunately Tuesday was the first day i said crap out loud. When I woke up I thought I had gotten up late so i yelled, CRAP ON A CRAPSTICK! It was funny, but I was a little upset about it.

Wednesday

Wednesday was incredibly uneventful other than the fact we got a new teacher named brother Mayne and we played some B-ball. Other than that it was freezing and I thought i was going to die, but it might have been the first time i was really bored...

Thursday

On Thursday we sat in class most of the day, I learned how to speak some German from Sister Grunke (the German sister in our district), but I couldn't say it without an Indian accent, so I'm guessing that I'm not really cut out for German. Other than that i nicknamed an Elder going to the French-Tahitian mission Papa bear because he's like 6'8" and he asked for a hug so i jumped into his arms. He literally held me three feet above the ground. It was a little scary.

Friday

FRIDAY WAS AWESOME. We got to go to San Fransisco to get our visas from the French Consulate, which was cool in itself. But the best part was that afterwards we got to go to Pier 39, from which you can see Albatraz, The Golden Gate Bridge, HUNDREDS of sea lions, and the sea (which I've secretly been missing a lot). I bought a little keychain that has a sea lion on it.I also met a really awesome elder named Elder Edmund. His family owns a T-shirt printing company and he's really awesome. We Had to wake up at 1:30 in the morning though, and we went back and forth from Salt Lake to San Fran, so by the time i got to bed that night i thought i was going to die! It's alright though, it was fun. We also gave our bus driver (Edgar) a book of Mormon. I talked to him for a couple hours while we were driving and found out he was from the Phillipines and he had been driving for 18 years (longer than i've been born!) He was really awesome though! He thanked us for the book of Mormon and said that even though he'd been driving Elders for 7 years, nobody had given him a book of Mormon yet.

Saturday

Saturday was pretty uneventful compared to Friday. I named the red haired Elder next to us who's going to a haitian creole mission Elder Gumdrop (Because he's the GINGERbreadman! HAHA, get it?) all that really happened than that was Elder Oviatt was way too distracting. He's getting a little bit too loud, but I'm hoping that i can get him to calm down a little.

Sunday

Alright, Sunday was so super spiritual that all I'm going to say in this section is that it was fast sunday, i was super hungry, The Provo Temple President, Robert H. Daines, and his wife spoke, and then we watched the Character of Christ video by David Bednar.

Little and spiritual plates

Alright, so I'm going to talk about four experiences

1- Don R. Clarke's talk was really really really good.He talked about emailing home about spiritual experiences and finding the house with the red sign (which is basically just finding people to teach from anywhere). His talk really inspired me to organize what I write in these emails, who I write, and the whole Edgar experience.

2- Brother Merrill and the book of Mormon. Brother Merrill basically had a lecture with my district on the book of Mormon. We talked about the Godhead being three distinct beings and the Divine Investiture of Power. For those of you who have no idea what that is, don't worry about it yet, for those of you who do, you know how awesome it is!

3- President Daines talk was really awesome and talked a lot about respecting women. I had already been thinking, gotta stop thinking about girls, but his talk really inspired me to respect them. By being more respectful to women, it really helps any kinds of thoughts, no matter how small.

4- The Character of Christ by Bednar. This might have possibly been the single most spiritual thing i've ever seen in my whole life. If you haven't seen it, see it. It really made me think of how selfish I've been in my life and inspired a lot of change in me. It was incredible and I hope that I don't forget it.

Anyways, I have a lot of work to do

Au Revoir from your Elder,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno

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First P-Day

Bonjour mes Amis et ma Famille.

Today's my first P-day and I get write you this awesome letter while doing the laundry. This week has been Pretty awesome. I started out in a beginners French class and our teacher didn't show up. it was pretty crazy because i had absolutely no idea what was happening. I did meet the most awesome people in the world though. My companion, Elder Baldwin, is a good ole southern boy just like me. He's from Marrietta, GA and i'm pretty sure we're the only people in the MTC from the south. My roommates include the companionship of Elder Fults From Fort Worth, TX and Elder Oviatt from Edminburg Canada. Elder Oviatt is hilarious, but the funniest thing about him and Elder Fults is that Fults means farts in German and I don't think i've ever heard someone fart as much as Elder Oviatt! the other companions i room with are Elder Ghirelli from Brazil and Elder Pederson from Denmark. Elder Ghirelli is really awesome because he doesn't know a ton of English and it's hard for him to go from Brazilian to English to French, but he Tries really hard. Elder Pederson is really funny though, he didn't know the N-word was bad, so he started throwing it around and everyone freaked out. My district is them plus Sister Hafen from Michigan and Sister Grunke (Smiley Face U though) from Germany. My Branch President two days after i got into the MTC, but President Zimbleman was there long enough to make me District Leader (which i thought would be all fun and no work, but i was wrong). Since the First Day my district has been made the Intermediate French class and everyone in it is amazing at French, well, except for me. I'm so horrible it's almost unbelievable they put me in the intermediate class, but I know with some prayer and hard work i'll be able to do it! My Branch President is now President Merrill, and if that sounds familiar then i will say YES, he is the brother merrill whose been teaching The Book of Mormon class at BYU for 25 years. The guy is pretty awesome and i'm learning a ton about the book of mormon. Right now we only have a teacher for one out of two classroom instruction times (and classroom instruction time is like 3 and a half hours), so we have a lot of free time and most of it we goof off. We've been getting better, and i'm trying as district leader to make sure we're studying during classroom and study times, but we don't get another teacher until Thursday and it's tough to pay attention for that long for all of us. The teacher we do have is named Sister (or Soeur in French) Judas and she's awesome. So far the toughest thing about this whole experience is that one of the Elders we room with has to take medecine an hour before he eats so we've decided we'll all wake up with him. The only problem is that we have the earliest breakfast time. essentially we go to bed between 10:30-10:45 and wake up at 5:30. I'm insanely tired, but i've started saying "the Harder you work the less tired you are". Elder Oviatt asked me if that was true this morning after i said it. HAHA, I told him, "I don't know, but if i stop working then i'm going to fall asleep". Memorable events include The Devotional we had by Elder Merrill Bateman of the quorum of the 70, Me memorizing the entire first vision in French (that's right, I'm Awesome!) and a pretty awesome trip to the Temple. Everyone make sure to send me emails so i can put them in my group letters, I need Gigi's, Flora's, Annika's, Ryan Hayes, Doctor Hassell, Gen's (because i Don't think the email i put is right), Nikki's, and other peoples! JUST SEND ME EMAIL ADDRESSES! Also make sure to log on to Dear Elder and send me a letter! Everyone is getting one and I want one! I promise that if you send me a letter I'll send you one back. I'll be online for the next like 20 minutes, so Email me if you're on :)! P.S. I always heard that most of the girls in the MTC were ugly and there we're a couple of cute ones. let's just say that that is definitely not true anymore! The work is more important than girls though! haha, Au Revoir.

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The Harder You Work the Less Tired You Are

Bonjour mes Amis et ma Famille.

Today's my first P-day and I get write you this awesome letter while doing the laundry. This week has been Pretty awesome. I started out in a beginners French class and our teacher didn't show up. it was pretty crazy because i had absolutely no idea what was happening. I did meet the most awesome people in the world though. My companion, Elder Baldwin, is a good ole southern boy just like me. He's from Marrietta, GA and I'm pretty sure we're the only people in the MTC from the south.

My roommates include the companionship of Elder Fults From Fort Worth, TX and Elder Oviatt from Edminburg Canada. Elder Oviatt is hilarious, but the funniest thing about him and Elder Fults is that Fults means farts in German and I don't think i've ever heard someone fart as much as Elder Oviatt! the other companions I room with are Elder Ghirelli from Brazil and Elder Pederson from Denmark. Elder Ghirelli is really awesome because he doesn't know a ton of English and it's hard for him to go from Brazilian to English to French, but he tries really hard. Elder Pederson is really funny though, he didn't know the N-word was bad, so he started throwing it around and everyone freaked out. My district is them plus Sister Hafen from Michigan and Sister Grunke (Smiley Face U though) from Germany.

My Branch President two days after I got into the MTC, but President Zimbleman was there long enough to make me District Leader (which I thought would be all fun and no work, but I was wrong). Since the First Day my district has been made the Intermediate French class and everyone in it is amazing at French, well, except for me. I'm so horrible it's almost unbelievable they put me in the intermediate class, but I know with some prayer and hard work I'll be able to do it! My Branch President is now President Merrill, and if that sounds familiar then I will say YES, he is the Brother Merrill whose been teaching The Book of Mormon class at BYU for 25 years. The guy is pretty awesome and I'm learning a ton about the Book of Mormon. Right now we only have a teacher for one out of two classroom instruction times (and classroom instruction time is like 3 and a half hours), so we have a lot of free time and most of it we goof off. We've been getting better, and I'm trying as district leader to make sure we're studying during classroom and study times, but we don't get another teacher until Thursday and it's tough to pay attention for that long for all of us. The teacher we do have is named Sister (or Soeur in French) Judas and she's awesome.

So far the toughest thing about this whole experience is that one of the Elders we room with has to take medicine an hour before he eats so we've decided we'll all wake up with him. The only problem is that we have the earliest breakfast time. essentially we go to bed between 10:30-10:45 and wake up at 5:30. I'm insanely tired, but I've started saying "the Harder you work the less tired you are". Elder Oviatt asked me if that was true this morning after i said it. HAHA, I told him, "I don't know, but if I stop working then I'm going to fall asleep".

Memorable events include The Devotional we had by Elder Merrill Bateman of the quorum of the 70. Me memorizing the entire first vision in French (that's right, I'm Awesome!) and a pretty awesome trip to the Temple. Everyone make sure to send me emails so i can put them in my group letters, I need Gigi's, Flora's, Annika's, Ryan Hayes, Doctor Hassell, Gen's (because I Don't think the email I put is right), Nikki's, and other peoples! JUST SEND ME EMAIL ADDRESSES!

Also make sure to log on to Dear Elder and send me a letter! Everyone is getting one and I want one! I promise that if you send me a letter I'll send you one back. I'll be online for the next like 20 minutes, so Email me if you're on :)! P.S. I always heard that most of the girls in the MTC were ugly and there we're a couple of cute ones. let's just say that that is definitely not true anymore! The work is more important than girls though! haha, Au Revoir.